counting
by thir13enth
Summary: She counts down the moments they have left together. He joins her at zero. Hei/Amber


**I don't quite remember where I got the idea for this one-shot (probably has to do with waking up at ungodly hours to a random song after falling asleep with headphones on), but enjoy in any case. Definitely going to be more Hei/Amber coming up.**

**Anyways, just as a quick note, I'm tapping into Hei's human side. **

**Also: sou da yo ne = isn't that right? It's more toward the end of the one-shot, and I use it because it sounds softer.**

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><p>"<em>14," someone said behind him, and he whipped out a blade within the next moment.<em>

"_Write this number down. 14," she repeated unflinchingly, the point of Hei's blade centimeters from the skin of her forehead._

"_Amber?" Hei retracted his weapon._

"_Write the number down, Hei. Otherwise you're going to forget."_

"_Forget what?" asked Hei, turning over a used scrap of paper and pulling out a pen to scrawl '14' as Amber had asked. She didn't reply so he looked up at her face._

"_You'll find out in time," she replied vaguely._

_His eyes snapped onto her eyes._

_She was always teasing him. Did she think it funny?_

_They were on a serious mission. South America wasn't fun and games. He hated how Amber and Bai kept him uninformed of everything—just telling him to remember this, or recall that, follow orders, fulfill commands. They didn't tell him shit, didn't explain anything._

_But he trusted them, trusted his sister—even if he didn't know what was going on in her mind—and kept quiet, loyal support and service._

_Her amber eyes gazed back at his. They were light, but dense; it was clear she knew much more than she was saying, much more than she was giving herself credit for._

_Amber had that contractor ability,—what was it? He wasn't even clear about that—some time traveling type of ability. He didn't doubt that she knew more than anyone else working with them destroying Heaven's Gate; she probably knew about events eons before their time, eons into the future._

"_Look how young you are, Hei," the blond remarked, breaking the silence that had developed between them. She gave him some kind of a smile and he didn't quite know what to make out of it._

_Often he had no idea what to make of what she said. Sometimes she was just so distant._

"_If 18 is young," he replied. For some reason, Amber seemed much more childish and naïve now than she usually was._

_She shrugged with a downcast smile. "I'm going to miss this."_

_He said nothing. He was trying to figure out what the hell was going on._

"_I'm going to miss you," she added._

_Something clicked in his mind. Was she going to sacrifice herself at Heaven's Gate after—?_

"_Amber, are you—"_

"_Shhh," her fingers reached up to lightly press his mouth shut._

_Those same fingers trailed down to outline his jaw. Her other hand joined and she now had his face cupped in her hands. He could feel her sweet breath resting over his skin as she sighed, almost nostalgically._

_Frozen, he had no idea what to do but to stay irrevocably still, nerves tense, muscles hard, breath short._

_She was taking too much advantage of him, and he found nothing enticing in her feminine wiles._

_Was she testing his patience? Teasing him even more? Rubbing in his face that he was subordinate to her, in wit and ability? That as a human, he was nothing in comparison to those that made contracts with the stars? He was already killing _people _for them—_

_He breathed in sharply when her hands fell from his face, her body closing space with his, pulling him into an embrace, her hands half caressing, half massaging his shoulder blades, ribs, the crease of his spine. He found his nose in her hair and his right cheek resting on her temple. _

_This degree of intimacy was wearing away his calm façade. His hands were swinging dead at his sides._

_A few moments into the embrace, he suddenly felt her chin lift off his right shoulder, her heels lift off the ground as she leaned further into him, her face turning towards his with parted lips and closed eyes—_

"_Amber," he warned sharply, pushing her away from him. _

_She didn't seem upset with his denial, giving a small smile to his raised hand instead._

"_Goodbye, Hei," she said, almost nonchalantly, turning to walk the other way._

"_Amber!" he shouted angrily, grabbing her forearm. "What the hell does '14' mean?"_

_Her lips curved into an untelling smile and she disappeared._

_Knowing she had probably froze time for a moment to get away, Hei quickly ran over to where he knew Bai and Amber always stayed when they had the time to sit and take a break. Breathing furiously, he held up the scrap of paper where '14' was largely written._

"_Amber," he demanded, simmered down but still with the same force behind his voice. "What is this?"_

_Bai turned around, interrupted in conversation with Amber, looking quizzedly at her brother, and Amber joined her in the stare, her eyebrows raised and questioning. They both appeared as though they had no clue what he was talking about._

_Liars. Actors. Cheaters. At times like these, he hated contractors for what they had against him. He was always left in the dark._

_He was slightly more naïve than he would be, and thought that he couldn't both love and hate simultaneously. _

_He decided that he would hate them, since he figured that it wouldn't hurt him as much later on when their stars fell from the night sky. _

_But he couldn't hate his precious sister._

_So he started to throw his contained frustration and bottled hatred at Amber instead, ripping the paper she told him to remember to shreds._

**manyyearspass**

"What's that you got there?" Huang asked, peering inquisitively over Hei's shoulder.

Hei swiftly halved the sheet of paper in his hands with his left hand, then slipping it into his jeans' pocket, he replied with a noncommittal gaze back at Huang, who had by now backed off a few steps.

"I'll work with contractors for the rest of my entire life, but I'll never understand them. Out of all of them, you the most," Huang muttered, despite his clear intention to not bother with Hei's private business, walking off in the same direction as he had come.

Hei closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in and stood up, fixing his white shirt under his characteristic green jacket, and continuing his walk back home.

He didn't like it when he was interrupted while playing one of his roles by someone associated with the other alias. It made him more transparent and easier to figure out to those that didn't know he was more than one person.

Especially when it came to her.

"_11," she said. "Write this number down. 11."_

_He used to question her about her unorthodox greeting, but by now he had gotten used to the random number sputtering that she gave him every time he saw her anachronistically._

_He said nothing, continuing his walk down the street, not even giving her the slightest attention._

_He _had _trusted her. As a human, he had let her teach him the misunderstandings between humans and contractors, between him and her. He had accepted it—her brainwashing—and began to think more rationally than even Amber herself. He trusted her enough to turn him cold, heartless, a murderer, working for whatever causes she assigned him. He trusted her enough to not need to depend on Bai to remind him that she had good intentions._

_It all failed._

_No one was left but him._

_She dared to show her lively face, reappearing from out of nowhere, without answering what happened to his sister?_

_And she was still bothering him with numbers. Numbers that he wrote down on a piece of paper. He didn't know what they were for, and she never answered his questions._

_It seemed ironic to him that he didn't trust her anymore, yet he was still taking down these trivial numbers that she announced._

"_Hei," she called out his name, knowing he was giving her the cold shoulder._

_He continued to walk on, hands on his pockets, quickening his pace._

"_Hei!"_

_He crossed the street, thinking that maybe she'd fall behind. But what was he to think that she wasn't persistent?_

_As he took a step onto the pavement of the next block, he felt an absence of someone behind him and looked back, seeing Amber standing, arms crossed, in the middle of the street._

_What in hell was she—_

_He leapt forward, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her towards him, the momentum of his save throwing both of them back against the curb, while the large truck that had been inches away from hitting Amber drove straight through the intersection, its loud horn blaring as it passed by._

"_See, Hei? You can't ignore me."_

_Then she added, "I know you care."_

Closing the door to his apartment, he took a seat down in the middle of the room on the floor and pulled out the well-worn out square piece of paper again.

Its edges were misshaped, one corner ripped, some of the ink was blurred because of rain, the crease in the paper deep and softened with frequent handling and finger oil. His handwriting had changed notably over the course of his life, but it was all the same recording of numbers in small legible ink, taking up little less than half the paper.

3 10 6 7 9 2 5 4 12

He added 11 to the end of the series of numbers, the freshest ink on the page.

He had 10 numbers so far. What the hell were they supposed to mean? Was she giving him codes for help with the Syndicate?

He had to stop thinking about her. She was part of the past, but for some reason she kept weaving through time. It was practically torture: to see someone from the past and not see the rest of the past alongside. He couldn't understand why she went would take the effort to elapse through time, whatever methods she used, to keep bothering him again and again when he was trying to let the scar heal over…

Were the numbers a combination for a lock? Something that get him out of trouble in the future?

…was she just teasing him again?

**weekslater**

And when he awoke on his side, he didn't even have to open his eyes to identify the extra weight he felt on the other side of his bed.

"Stop haunting me."

"8, Hei. Write that number down."

"Get out of my bed."

She didn't seem fazed. "I like to watch you when you're sleeping, Hei."

So he flicked open his eyes, dark blue irises focusing on the woman lying on her side, facing him.

One hand was under the pillow she rested on her on, and the other was raised above him, brushing aside one of his dark locks.

"You're always so tense and uptight when you're awake," she said, putting that hand down on the top of his shoulder.

He hadn't invited her touch, but he wasn't going to demand she remove her hand either, he realized as her warmth spread over him.

"Don't touch me," he demanded, but she caught the softness in his voice.

"You never minded in South America," she replied, her head and body inching closer, pushing through blanket and sheets, the hand on his shoulder dropping loosely to hold his bicep, fingers tracing patterns on his forearm, bringing chills over his skin.

He resisted when reminded, hand grabbing her wrist and placing her hand back to its rightful place by her side. "It was different," he retorted. It was true they played that game, and it was true that he hadn't minded, save that one time…

"You haven't changed much, Hei."

"I don't want to see you anymore."

"Then let go of me."

He suddenly noticed his hand was still tight around her wrist. He released it slowly, teeth gritting down in a frown.

"Hei," and her hand moved up to his cheek, bringing his eyes back to hers. "What happened? What did I do wrong?"

He didn't want to answer, didn't want to explain, afraid of what he would realize if he thought about it.

He pulled his hand up to hers to take it off his face, but found his hand resting over hers instead.

"Nothing," he answered anyway.

"Hei, tell me what you really want to say."

She didn't seem to mind that he didn't have an answer.

Perhaps she already knew.

He remembered that his hand was over hers, and so disregarded the fact that he kept it there, and pried her fingers away.

Amber was stronger than she looked, and she used his strength to pull him off his side and onto his stomach, lying comfortably on the right side of her body, the hand that he was pulling off his face now guiding his hand to her neck. She slipped right under, pulling her body fully underneath him and placing both hands to the base of his neck.

Her breath tickled the underside of his jaw, and he raised his torso up onto his elbows, which were on either side of her shoulders.

She said nothing, amber eyes reflecting his eyes back at him. Her hands pulled his head down, and her nose and mouth grazed the side of his neck, where he felt her breathe in to taste the musk off him, and then pulled up her lips to his right ear.

"I've missed this," she whispered, soft lips and breath fluttering against his shuddering skin.

She withdrew, amber on dark blue again.

Gravity, or maybe another force, pulled his head down to touch lips.

His eyes were closed so he was startled when his face met the soft cloth of his pillow.

_What happened? What did I do wrong?_

"You left me. You keep leaving me," he said under his breath, as the bed grew cold.

"…you're all I have left."

**nightslongafter**

"You still have a large stomach."

He almost choked on his food, and saw a familiar blond sitting across from him on the table.

He lost his appetite, half recalling what happened the last time she intruded his life.

Hei stood abruptly, fixing his shirt calmly, as though nothing had happened, and began to walk out of the restaurant, even leaving some food behind in the dishes.

He turned into a narrow alley and then turned, and without doubt, Amber was right behind him.

"Stop following me through time."

"Stop?" she asked, and then she gave him a small frown that told him she was piecing together some information in her head.

Hei wasn't amused.

"You keep showing up. Just stop."

"Hei," she said, his name gliding off her tongue. "Tell me what you really want to say."

He sucked in a breath. She had asked this before.

"I don't want to see you anymore if—" and he caught himself.

"Hm?" she encouraged him to continue, standing still there, head slightly tilted, her eyebrows slightly furrowed in concern.

He gathered his thoughts into one sentence.

"Stop leaving me."

Silence held their tongues for a few moments and then Amber gave him a soft and knowing smile.

"So it scares you that I don't seem to live the same way you do," she concluded, tilting her head up to look at the evening sky. "It's okay you don't. I live as a fourth dimensional being, skirting in and out of time. It scares you that you don't know where I come from and where I'm going, that you don't understand what is going on in my mind."

She brought her eyes back down to his. "Sou da yo ne?"

He didn't answer, but he guessed she read it in his eyes.

She probably understood him more than anyone else.

"I'm going to start counting then, okay, Hei?" Amber announced. "From now on, whenever I'm passing through time, I'm going to count off every time I see you." She paused for a moment, eyes heading up to the twilight night again. "I guess you'll figure everything out eventually."

Silence for a moment again.

"I'm not leaving you, Hei. I just keep coming back to see you."

His eyes started to move upward to try to trace what she was looking at, but her eyes returned to his again. "So this is 1, okay? This is number 1."

Hei reached for her hand but she ran off in the other direction, vanishing before his eyes.

He produced a square piece of paper out of his pocket, seeing all the numbers that he had religiously recorded in ink.

And he realized.

**dearagony**

He waited anxiously for her, with so much to say on his tongue.

A wisp of blond hair and his heart pounded as he turned around, dropping the jacket that he was about to hang onto the door.

"Amber," he said.

"13," she said. And she smiled widely. "Are you going to ask me why I'm giving you numbers now?"

Stupid rhetorical question. He just stepped forward and embraced her tightly.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I…misunderstood…so much."

There wasn't anything to say for a long time.

"It had always been me that started," she remarked, her arms still at her sides. "You always just played along afterward." And her arms slowly rose to return the embrace.

"I hated you," Hei said. "I blamed you for everything."

Amber breathed in and out. "It made it easier for you to accept that everyone's gone. It's okay."

"I threw it all onto you."

"I'm willing to carry that burden for you."

"Why?" and his voice crackled to nothing in guilt.

She closed her eyes for one more second in his arms and then pulled herself away from him, his arms dropping to her waist.

"Hei, I don't have any more time left."

Before he could ask, she continued, "I'm not going to be able to make it back without my remuneration…"

"Then stay here with me," he replied, bringing her into an embrace once again.

She lifted her head up. "I—"

But he interrupted her with a kiss, which she leaned into.

He was distracted by moisture, a drop of something falling onto his cheek, and when he pulled back to meet her eyes, he found they were the source.

"I don't understand," she said softly. "I don't want to die, but I want to be with you forever."

A tighter embrace evolved.

After a long while, Amber looked up at him. "I'm going to visit you out of nostalgia."

He stared blankly into amber.

She smiled. "Don't worry, I'm not leaving you. I'm still counting."

"Next is 14."

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><p><strong>Reviews please! I really want to hear what you guys think of this one! :D<strong>

**thir13enth**


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